Robert Scott

The Nare hotel is the most highly regarded hotel in Cornwall, and one of the most desirable in the UK. In this role I:

• Managed a team of 4 reservationists and 4 receptionists.
• Ensured accuracy of reservations.
• Ensured Front of House staff hit all KPIs and met expected standards.
• Provided financial reports to the General Manager, Financial Director and Managing director.
• Worked with various travel agents and press organisations to promote the hotel through FAM trips and suchlike.
• Managed rate building.
• Maximised hotel occupancy.
• Projected forecasts for room nights sold across the year.

In this role, I overhauled the M&E department to a point where events booking revenue is at an all-time high. My reservations team is also the highest performing reservations team in all of the UK Yotel hotels. Other duties include:

• Supervised and supported reservations team.
• Worked closely with sales department to increase corporate booking revenue.
• Dealt with all events enquiries.
• Events contract negotiation.
• Reported to head office financial team relevant figures of pick-up, group wash, etc.
• Recruitment and training of new employees.

In this role I was required to manage both the reception team and the reservations staff. My duties included:

• Ensuring accuracy of booking records on hotel reservation system.
• Providing systems training for reservation staff.
• Ensuring KPIs for both receptionists and reservations were met.
• Overseeing the reception desk, ensuring all guest needs were handled efficiently and professionally.
• Financial reporting to the revenue team; providing the figures required for forecast and budget.
• Maximising occupancy rates through processes such as complimentary upgrades and rate manipulation.

I was originally hired for the position of Reservations/Guest Relations Manager. After a year in this role the upper management saw a real aptitude in me for sales, and so a new role was created within the company in order to best use my skill set. While Reservations Manager, my position involved:

• Supervision and training of junior reservations staff.
• Customer care and sales of reservations.
• Guest relations such as complaint handling.
• Administrative tasks relating to company accounting.

Once my position shifted to Sales Manager, while continuing to provide the above, I was tasked to concern myself more with:

• Attracting and administering corporate accounts.
• Private showings of company property to prospective guests (usually, but not exclusively, corporate guests and travel agents).
• Increasing proportion of bookings made directly through the company, rather than through a third party.
• Business-to-business sales and networking.

During my time in this role I have managed to dramatically increase the percentage of reservations taken directly by the company, thus significantly reducing the commission needed to be paid to third party agents. I have also successfully negotiated several new contracts with travel agents who were either new contacts or companies with which we had a previous arrangement.

Originally employed as a receptionist, when my probationary period ended I was immediately promoted to the position of Reception Manager. Upper management were impressed with my professionalism and willingness to take ownership of the role, and so promoted me at the earliest possible opportunity. In this role it was important to effectively manage workload due to the wide variety of tasks I was expected to perform in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment, and due to the seemingly infinite number of potential issues guests could face, it was also of the utmost importance to keep cool under pressure. My duties included:

• Financial reports for hotel sales, and the preparing of figures to be used in reports by upper management.
• Answering customer queries whether client facing, through email or over the phone.
• Ensuring the front of house team consistently hit KPIs, and hitting KPIs of my own put in place by upper management.
• Inputting and ensuring quality control/accuracy of hotel bookings for The Murrayfield and its sister hotels.
• Designing training materials and implementing training processes for junior members of staff.
• Liaising between management and various outside organisations such as contractors, financial sector and other such agencies in order to ensure issues were dealt with by the relevant staff.
• Financial control such as banking cash, taking electronic payments and performing audits of the payments taken over the working day, ensuring balance and accuracy.
• Various clerical and secretarial tasks such as stationary orders, printing, filing, transferring telephone calls, etc.

Being in charge of the reception and all of the administrative workings of the facility, I worked closely with the three company directors to ensure the smooth day-to-day running of the business. Every day was different in this position but my most important responsibilities included:

• Preparing weekly/monthly/quarterly/annual sales reports.
• Preparing, administering and collating invoices for goods and services provided.
• Minute taking (I have the ability to touch-type).
• Being the first point of contact for any and all enquiries, and either handling issues personally or escalating to a company director if need be.
• Writing the monthly newsletter for the facility.
• Writing the weekly blog.
• Client-facing roles such as selling memberships and supplements.
• The administration and selling of trade accounts.
• Stock control.
• Diary management of the company directors and liaising between different staff and departments.
• Timetabling meetings and minute taking.
• Marketing for the facility through social media and the company website.
• Supervising and training junior members of staff.
• General clerical and secretarial responsibilities as would be expected in a reception role.

I also worked as a fitness instructor as a part-time job in addition to my full-time hours as reception manager.